Category: Climate Change

An advertising billboard becomes a space for socially-conscious art and then transforms into sustainable bags and accessories.

This is the story of a three-way collaboration between Lamar Advertising Company, the largest out-of-home advertising company in the United States,RAREFORM, a Santa Monica-based producer of bags and accessories repurposed from billboards, and Milton Glaser, the legendary artist and designer famous for creating the I ❤ NY logo.

Last year, Glaser launched the “It’s Not Warming, It’s Dying” campaign to create new urgency around the issue of climate change and to shift the language and narrative away from benign terms like “global warming.”

This year, Lamar Advertising has provided a billboard in Los Angeles at Crenshaw Boulevard and West 59th Place to showcase Glaser’s “It’s Dying” campaign. The billboard with Glaser’s artwork will remain on display until the end of October. After the billboard comes down, RAREFORM will repurpose Glaser’s artwork into approximately 300 limited-edition backpacks and accessories.

Designers and artists like Glaser looking to make a statement about environmental sustainability have the challenge of walking the walk as well as talking the talk. Campaign collateral like buttons, stickers, posters, and billboards all require natural resources to produce and often turn into waste after they have served their purpose. This collaboration between Glaser, RAREFORM, and Lamar provides a system for the sustainable reuse of these materials.

For designers working to be more sustainable, the lesson here is to think beyond creating collections for a single season, and instead design systems for reuse and transformation across the lifecycle of a product.

At the end of November, RAREFORM will host a gallery show in Los Angeles. The exhibit will feature exclusive videos, photos, and products from the collaboration, as well as some of Glaser’s other work.

The United Nations has determined that, in the next 40 years, we must double crop production to feed, fuel and clothe nine billion people. How do we meet this challenge with converting every forest and savannah into agricultural land? What are the unexpected alliances that can lead the way forward?

My thoughts:

Panelist Jason Clay mentions that one of the ways to increase agricultural yields is to open up patents and other research information to foster innovation and increase equality of access of food production technologies. Controversy over genetic engineering aside, I can agree in principle with that strategy. He makes the unfortunate use of the words “intellectual property,” an overreaching and unhelpful term. What is at stake here is patents specifically, as well as research data (scientific facts, whose protection as “intellectual property” under copyright is questionable). Patents and copyrights are temporary monopolies designed to promote innovation. “Intellectual property,” is a confusing and problematic umbrella term that conflates this kind of monopoly with actual physical property. (See Richard Stallman’s article for more)Continue reading Commentary on Billions to Be Served: Meeting the Needs of the People and the Planet

Yesterday I headed over to Giants Stadium in New Jersey with the Avaaz/Fenton crew to attend the Live Earth concerts. Seeing Bon Jovi perform on their home turf was a religious experience! Check out more of my pictures on Flickr. Below: inflatable pig from Roger Waters’ set.

So this is what I have been up to for the last 3 days. Editing and subtitling, animating the graphics, and programming beats for the intro/outros. Hope you all enjoy and feel inspired to go take the climate change pledge at Avaaz.org!
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NEW YORK–Climate activists affiliated with Avaaz.org, a new million-member global online advocacy group, and AlGore.com, former Vice President Al Gore’s personal email list, have organized 5000 parties in 119 countries centered on the July 7 Live Earth concerts, Avaaz announced today.
In addition to watching the concerts, partygoers will take the Live Earth Pledge, committing to personal and political action to combat the climate crisis.

“Live Earth is the best possible moment to start an unstoppable movement to end the climate crisis,” said Ricken Patel, executive director of Avaaz.org. “Global public opinion is the new superpower, and Live Earth is giving it a historic jolt of renewable energy.”

Avaaz members have registered to host 2500 parties, including 312 in Australia, 100 in Mexico, 121 in Great Britain, 70 in South Africa, 17 in India, and 58 in Slovenia. While all the parties will involve the concerts and the Live Earth Pledge, each is unique–including:
• a dance party at a club in Bosnia
• children’s plays about global warming organized in Cotonu, Benin
• a climate change festival at the International Peace Museum in Ohio
• a Bahai prayer service in Mozambique

Event details can be accessed through an interactive map at www.liveearth.org. The parties will be “co-hosted” by Al Gore, who will appear via an exclusive online video (subtitled into several world languages by Avaaz).

Avaaz members recently delivered a 375,000 petition to the chair of the G8 negotiations, calling for world leaders to begin global negotiations on climate change before the end of the year.
“Avaaz’s work to give ordinary people around the world a powerful voice in global decision-making is inspiring, and their climate crisis organizing around the G8 Summit made a significant difference,” said Gore. “Through these parties, we can reach more people than ever before and build a truly global movement to solve the climate crisis.”

“On July 7th, thanks to Live Earth, 2 billion people will be thinking about climate change. It is a rare and priceless opportunity to build political will, and Avaaz members are making the most of it,” said Ricken Patel of Avaaz.org.

Avaaz.org is a new multi-issue online network that provides opportunities for citizens of every country to take concerted action on urgent global problems – climate change, poverty, the crisis in the Middle East. Avaaz.org’s mission is to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people shape global decisions. It operates in 12 languages. Recently launched in January 2007, it now has over a million members from every nation of the world. ‘Avaaz’ means ‘voice’ in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages.